I took a walk around the local strip mall the other day. The only traffic was a guy in a muscle car doing burn-outs. In the old days, the cops would have been on him in a minute. But no one was there to notice him except for me. The parking lot was empty except for… Read the rest of this entry »

On a recent weekend I drove to a spot along the beach in Brick Township to see how my tax dollars were doing. About 40 million of them are going to build a steel wall that will protect a four-mile stretch of beach running from Mantoloking southward. Once I parked, I realized there was no way… Read the rest of this entry »

There is some speculation that our governor will eventually bow out of the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination in return for a position in the administration of the next President Bush. I doubt that will happen. But if it does, let’s hope the position in question isn’t secretary of state. Earlier this week, Chris… Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t look now, but our self-avowed “pro-life” governor just nominated a pro-choicer to the state Supreme Court. I’m not talking about Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, the liberal Democrat whom Christie reappointed in a deal with the Democrats. If Rabner…

File photo Elvis had left the building. That was obvious at last week’s convention of the New Jersey League of Municipalities in Atlantic City. Traditionally, the winner of the governor’s race does a victory lap at the League luncheon. Last week…

Asbury Park, NJ – When Jersey Shore Tea Party president, Mark Falzon, invited conservative Republican congressional candidate Ernesto Cullari to speak to his organization on Wednesday, May 23, Falzon said the event would be a “meeting with his members”.

Now Anna Little, Cullari’s opponent in the June 5th primary, and the Bayshore Tea Party Group, which is supporting Little, have created a Facebook invite that hypes the event a little differently: “Debate! Anna Little vs. Ernesto Cullari!”

“I’m happy to go anywhere to meet people, but this is the wrong venue for a debate,” said Cullari, who is seeking the nomination in New Jersey’s 6th congressional district, now held by liberal Democrat Frank Pallone. “Mark Falzon is one of Bayshore founder Barbara Gonzalez’ closest allies. I look forward to a debate, but on neutral territory.”

“We have a lot of questions we want to put to Anna Little,” said Cullari manager Kelly Hart, “Like why Little is running on the Bayshore ticket with Bader Qarmout.” Little, an immigration attorney, is on the Bayshore Tea Party Group “ticket” with U.S. Senate candidate Bader Qarmout. Qarmout is the author of a controversial amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. For a nominal fee of $19.25 a week, Qarmout’s plan would allow an illegal immigrant to remain in the United States, work here, open a bank account, and obtain a driver’s license.

“The Qarmout-Little team would let illegals stay in the United States for $2.75 a day – less than the price of a Big Mac,” said Hart. “It is the most liberal amnesty plan being pushed by a Republican candidate anywhere in America.”

The Star Ledger’s Tom Moran is back to his old tricks of using the race card while attempting to advance his political agenda.

In early 2010, shortly after Governor Chris Christie took office, Moran tried to derail the Christie administration by teaming up with Assembly Speaker Shelia Oliver to call Christie and his team “…white men, most of them political neophytes…” who never rode a bus and couldn’t understand how their deeply their economic policies were impacting “working poor families.”

Moran did that before he realized that Christie is a “force of nature who could probably make a dog sing if he put his mind to it.”

In a column posted on Tuesday that defends the President’s constitutional pronouncements about the Supreme Court’s right to overturn ObamaCare Moran employed Jeanane Garofalo’s tactic of accusing Obama’s critics of being racist.

Because Moran is smarter and prettier, his accusation is sublter than Garofalo’s crude remarks, yet it is no less offensive:

Obama went on to make an important point: That if the court overrules the health care law, it will be practicing judicial activism. Conservatives have been complaining about judicial activism since the Supreme Court struck down Jim Crow segregation laws in the South, and the heat rose considerably after Roe v. Wade.

Activistism is when a Court finds, invents or redefines a constitutional provision in order to make new law that is consistent with its political or ideological preference. That is what the U.S. Supreme Court did in Roe v Wade and what the NJ Supreme Court did in the Abbott decisions.

Constructionism is what a court does when it decides that the legislative or executive branches exceeded the power granted to them in the Constitution, like mandating people buy something they don’t want.

Moran, like Obama, probably knows the difference. Also like Obama, he probably just doesn’t think the Constitution is that important. That’s OK for Moran who hasn’t sworn to protect and defend the Constitution. It’s not OK for the President who has sworn that oath.

The race card worked well for liberals in 2008. The invoked it successfully to mute Obama’s poltical opponents in the Democratic primary and during the general election. They appealed to ‘white guilt” to get Obama elected. It was a disgusting and effective strategy.

But the race card is played out. It didn’t work in the politicization of the Trayvon Martin tragedy. It didn’t work when Garofalo played it. It didn’t work in 2010.

Moran should stop playing the race card. Conservative opposition to ObamaCare has nothing to do with the Jim Crow laws, just as Governor Christie’s economic policies have nothing to do with how many of his cabinet members and staffers have ever ridden a bus.

Moran’s job is the inform, educate and persuade. He should leave the obfuscation to politicians, activists and B-rate entertainers looking for their next gig.

The press is vetting Govenor Chris Christie’s nominees to the State Supreme Court.

NJ.com, The Star Ledger’s website, posted an article this morning about the family business of nominee Phillip Kwon. Kwon’s mother owns a liquor store in Mt. Vernon, NY that made a $160,000 settlement with the New York U.S. Attorney’s office over $2,000,000 in allegedly “structured” cash bank deposits. “Structuring” is the practice of spreading out cash deposits in order to avoid the $10,000 trigger that requires the bank to report the deposit to the IRS.

There is no evidence or allegation that Kwon had anything to do with the business or the transactions. There was no admission of liablity in the settlement.

Star Ledger columnist/blogger Paul Mulshine reports that Bruce Harris, the African-American gay Mayor of Chatham that Christie nominatied to the Court along with Kwon this week, wrote an email to state senators, including Joe Pennacchio, asking that they support the same sex marriage bill that was before the Senate during the lame duck session of 2009.

Harris’s email said, in part (with emphasis added):

The New Jersey Supreme court has determined that our relationship is entitled to the equal protection guarantees of the State Constitution. The New jersey Civil Union Review Commission determined that civil unions do not provide the equality the State Constitution mandates.(Please take a few moments and visit www.gardenstateequality.org. which has two short videos that provide sad examples of the failures of the civil union law.)

Mulshine points out that there is no equal protection clause in the State Constitution. Mulshine quotes conservative Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll regarding “originalists” interpretations of the State Constitution:

“No originalist can tell me there’s an equal protection clause in the constitution. No originalist can tell me there’s a right to a thorough and efficient education or a right to affordable housing.”

As much as Christie has done, and is attempting to do, to reform New Jersey’s government, there is nothing more important he can do that make sure conservatives, “orignalists,” are seated on the Supreme Court. The State Supreme Court will be his legacy.

I hope that Christie is not using the same standard that former Governor Christine Todd Whitman used to populate the Court, i.e., appointing friends and senior staffers or making “diversity” appointments for political gain.

The activist State Supreme Court, with the consent of the Legislature and six governors/acting governors, have destroyed New Jersey’s economy over the two decades.

Governor Christie needs to make sure his nominees have the “right stuff.” Hopefully Kwon and Harris do.

Harris said we would recuse himself from cases involving gay marriage. Now that he is going to be a Justice, if confirmed, he needs to brush up on the State Constitution.

As for Kwon, the news of his mother’s business with the feds is interesting but does not qualify him.

The question the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the press, should ask, is what does qualify Kwon and Harris.

Is being the Governor’s long term trusted colleague enough? Is being Black and gay enough?

Maybe it is. But similar standards did not serve us well with Whitman’s Court.

That’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats latch onto any way to gain power and force their agenda through, like Obamacare. Republicans waste their time over purity of thought and have circular firing squads.

The only reason Republicans get power is because the Democrats screw things up so badly that the voters force a change. Then the Republicans turn on each other and the Democrats are back again like a herpes outbreak.